He hadn't heard her voice in two years. He had no idea how much of her voice he'd forgotten.

When he looked up at first, it was with polite blankness, wondering which woman on the ship knew his name to be getting his attention.

He hadn't forgotten how she looked, though, the color of her robes and the path of her scar and how she looked at him with all the love in the world, all the love in the cosmos.

Kubo sucked in a breath. He was imagining her. He had to be.

No, he didn't. At least one person on the ship had died in their world. He knew. The Time Trapper could pull people out of time. There were so many ways she could be here. So many ways - but it had been too much to hope for - but now -

"Mother!"

He didn't manage to get his own voice loud at first, the surreality of his dead mother standing over the view of the earth with him lifting. She was real. She was here. By the miracles of this place, she could be.

His movements had been slow, but he suddenly grew fluid and fast, slipping out of the shamisen's strap and setting it down to get out of his window and run to her.

His mother was here. She had been too much to hope for and yet here she was, and he could not get his arms around her fast enough.

"Mother!"

There was sobbing imminent in his voice.